


promises to keep

by myrmeraki



Series: West Wing High [2]
Category: The West Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Cute, F/F, First Dates, Fluff, High School, Holding Hands, Snowball Fight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:28:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28761066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myrmeraki/pseuds/myrmeraki
Summary: Donna and Joey's first date as mentioned in "can i have a ride home?", you don't need to read that to read this though. There's yearning, there's ice skating, and there's the promise of beginnings.
Relationships: Joey Lucas/Donna Moss
Series: West Wing High [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2108661
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	promises to keep

**Author's Note:**

> here she is as said, Donna and Joey's first date because I love them a lot and it's a darn shame there's so little works with them. hopefully this is the second of hopefully more west wing high school au works, I quite like playing around with their personalities as teenagers. leave a comment and/or kudos if you enjoyed!

Donna scanned the pairs of fuzzy socks a second time, waiting for it to make a sound. The machine beeped in confirmation and she stuffed them into her bag. The unfamiliar and almost-uncomfortable thrum of her heart was of nervousness and joy, and for reasons unknown, the physical reminder of the feeling drew up strands of guilt. 

To tell the truth, Donna was just a little bit terrified of Joey Lucas. It was the same terror of thunderstorms or driving through the fields at three a.m. Like anything good or bad could happen, and the sheer amount of opportunity and the unknown was overwhelming. 

Joey stood with her back against the wall opposite the self check-out and smiled when Donna caught her eye. Her lips pulled up to the side in a smirk that Donna would have found annoying in anyone else. Joey was never anyone else, though. 

"How's the pop?" Donna said just to say something and gestured to the can in Joey's hand. 

"Orange-like." Joey sipped the orange-crush as they walk back to the car. The doors opened with a flush of cold air pushing against them, and both Donna and Joey squint against the cold. It's only slightly snowing, the flakes large and wet and threatening to pile up around them as the night raged on. 

"We're supposed to get a few feet over the next few days?" Joey asked. She held her hands to her mouth and blew into them ineffectively, one of them still wrapped around her soda can. 

"It-" Donna started and Joey laid a hand on her shoulder, silently asking Donna to face her. Donna blamed the flush of warmth in her cheeks and the tumbling feeling in her stomach to the cold and the lack of food respectively. 

She holds as Joey's eyes flicker between Donna's eyes and her lips. "It accumulates by a magnitude," Donna said. Joey nodded, lips pursed and sage-like. 

"Hold this? Have some if you want." Donna took Joey's can as she unlocked the car doors. She tilted the metal up, smelling fuzzy artificial citrus. The carbonation jumped and bubbled, landing tiny spots in her nose as she pressed her lips to the metal. Donna thought about Joey's lips on this can and her lips on this can and then feels bad for thinking about Joey's lips again. 

They got into the car and buckled up, Donna handing the can back to Joey who put it in a cupholder. Joey's car-which was her parent's car really, none of them owned a car but Donna liked to think of it as Joey's-was a turtle-like Toyota from the early '90s that Joey affectionately dubbed Filburt.

"We've got," Donna glanced at her watch, "An hour or so before we can go to the rink, right?" 

Joey nodded as she pulled out of the parking spot. The car jerked a bit as she shifted gears, and Joey frowned at the dashboard.

"He's not feeling well," Joey said and tapped the steering wheel like she was comforting a small child. Donna snickered and looked out the window. The last thing she needed was Joey getting a good picture of what she looked flustered. 

"He's sick?" Donna joked and stole another sip of Joey's soda. Joey playfully slapped at Donna's hand, focused on the road.

"He's our way home, be nice to him." 

Donna waited as they drove through the accumulating slush in the parking lot and out to the road. Joey turned on the wipers to flick the snow off the windshield, and Donna followed their arc with her eyes. There was almost nothing like the feeling of settling into a warming car after walking through the cold. Donna let her attention turn slowly off of Joey and out the window. Frost had gathered in sharp crystal webs across the glass, and she pressed a hand to it before pulling away. The store turned small in the mirror, replaced with suburban houses and Christmas lights and the occasional gas station. 

Joey silently pointed to her left, a smile spread across her face. There was a house with a huge Grinch inflatable in the front yard, its plastic evil smile warped by the snow. Its arms waved up, down, and side to side like an air-dancer. Donna lifted her arms in a mimicking wave, humming half a Christmas song. 

"You hungry?" Joey asked as they pulled to a slow stop. The stoplights all around them cast red sheets over Joey's face, and Donna wished for her polaroid camera that lay forgotten on her bed. 

"Panera's a mile or so west of here." 

"You read my mind." 

Donna felt very Hallmark-esque sitting in the corner booth of the Panera, eating mac and cheese and wearing her fingerless gloves and talking about Christmas. She wondered in the back of her mind if they made Hallmark movies for gay people. Probably not. But if they did, she was living in it. 

Joey was half talking and half signing about a book she was reading, or a movie she'd found, or her last math class. Donna was trying to pay attention to her, and for the most part, she was. If Joey asked, Donna was pretty sure she'd be able to repeat the gist of what she'd said back to her. 

Just with a lot of glazed eyes and butterflies in her lungs threatening to suffocate her.

Crushing on Joey was scary, but Donna would be lying to herself if she said she wasn't having fun. Talking to Joey was easier than it was with other guys she'd been interested in, guided by that smooth level of innate understanding and camaraderie that made friendships with girls more natural to ease into. Donna could worry over Joey's lips and her neck and her hands and not perform because of it. Because at the end of the day it was similar to hanging out, except Donna allowed herself to look a little too long at Joey's mouth.

It was sharing ice-rink hot chocolate and french fries. It was Donna and Joey lacing up their skates side by side. It was Donna skating alongside the wall and Joey trying over and over to spin, falling on her ass, but getting up again every time. Every time. 

Joey flipped her hair out of her eyes and looked up at Donna from the floor of the rink. 

"You're really quite bad at this whole skating thing," Donna said and held out her hand.

Joey took it and Donna helped her up, memorizing the feel of Joey's palm against her palm and the way their fingers locked together. Joey's hands were pink and cold and wet, ice melting on her palms and under her nails. 

"Why don't you let go of the wall and show us how it's done?" Joey let go of Donna's hand leaving her, in an ironic twist, feeling cold.

"Oh no thank you." Donna pushed against the ice and continued along with the rink, Joey skating easily by her side. "I know where my limits lie and it's safe, here, with my friend the wall."

Joey laughed and Donna thought she might keep talking forever just to get her to laugh like that again. 

"You'll never know until you try."

"I'll never  _ fall _ if I never try," Donna said. Joey rolled her eyes and held out a hand. Donna took it, wrapping their fingers together as Joey pulled them an arm's length away from the wall.

"If I fall I'm taking you with me," Donna said. Joey looked to her lips as she spoke, and Donna pretended she felt her gaze linger. Lip-reading as a necessity in spoken conversation with Joey gave Donna an excellent excuse to stare at her as they talked. There was no shy lowering of her head or tripping mumbles or Joey would tilt her head, raise her eyebrows, and not respond until Donna had gotten herself together. The sign equivalent of trepidation shone through in Donna's fingers, easy words turning clumsy and a pinky or pointer accidentally pointed the wrong way and needed quick correction. It made her feel like she did when she just started learning. Of course, she didn't know a lot of sign as it was, but she has basic words down. Simple things became stiff or awkward, and Donna was certain Joey could see the anxiety in her hands as easily as Donna would have heard it in her own voice. 

"I'm counting on it," Joey said and guided them further still from the rink. She did not drop Donna's hand, and Donna didn't see any reason to be the one that broke. 

"You're good at this," Donna admitted with a smile as she slipped. She tightened her grip on Joey's hand in a moment of panic, and Joey reached towards Donna with her other hand just as she rose. 

"I used to skate when I was younger," Joey explained. 

"Really? Like," Donna shook a clump of shaved ice off her blade and looked back up, "Like competitively?"

Joey nodded.

"Only for a bit. And I wasn't any good."

"Well, big fish little pond. Very little, very frozen pond." Donna gestured at the rink with a smile. The rink spent its mornings and afternoons as a hockey rink, cut up for hours by practice sessions and actual games alike. And by nights and some weekends, with the help of Christmas lights and a food stand next to the penalty box, it turned into a lovely little skating rink. Families went around in circles, adventurous preteens raced along the same edges, weaving in and out of the flow of people. Other pockets of teenagers went with or against the grain, depending on who they were. Joey and Donna followed the clockwise-or was it counterclockwise?- rotation of people, although now with Joey leading they were going a little faster than the rest of the flow. 

"Slow down, I'm gonna fall!" Donna squeezed Joey's hand to get her attention and Joey squeezed back. It reminded Donna of CPR, like that small squeeze around her fingers traveled up her veins and into her heart. 

"Don't!"

"What do you mean don't, I can't control if I fall over or not, otherwise I would just not fall over!" Donna huffed in false-annoyance. In the back of her mind, she worried about falling into other people or hitting her head on the ice, and even the embarrassment of falling over. But weighing that all next to Joey, all pink cheeks and cold hands and snow-smile, it was clear what or rather  _ who _ would win out. 

It was only a matter of time before Joey leads them on a turn too tight, and neither of them can make it. They both knew it before it happened, and with a glance at each other and a laugh that made her sound tipsy, Donna pushed against the ice. 

They fell onto each other more than anything, and Donna was just relieved they didn't spin out of control and crash into an unsuspecting family. Joey fell onto Donna's legs, and Donna's palms were rubbed red against the chipped ice.

"You girls alright?" A blond man with a large beard and a snow hat, probably someone's dad, called out at them. Donna looked at Joey, her eyes wide. Joey scootched off Donna's legs and wiped her hands together. 

_ I can't believe we did that, this should be really embarrassing, oh my God why- _

"We're fine, thanks!" Donna said at the same time that Joey held up her hand in a thumbs-up. Donna shook her hands together rubbed off the chips of ice stuck into her palms. Her fingers were pink and starting to burn with the cold, despite being inside. 

Joey caught Donna's eye and slowly spread her lips into a smile. Donna realized she was mirroring Joey only after they started giggling, and then doubled over on the ice laughing. 

"Oh my God-"

"Why would you  _ do _ that-"

"The look on your face-"

"Stop it, stop," Donna waved at Joey with one hand and grabbed the side of her ribs with the other. She was struck, amazingly, at how carefree she felt. She didn't care about laughing too hard or looking too messy or the possibility of being judged by any other people on the rink. She was having fun, and Joey wasn't judging her, in fact, she was fooling around with her. 

"Come on," Joey rose with a slip to her feet, and offered Donna a hand," If we don't get up they'll kick us out." 

Donna took Joey's hand again-mentally tallying that this was the third or fourth time she'd held Joey's hand tonight-and pulled herself up. She succeeded after only three times and just barely pulling Joey back onto the ice with her.

Joey didn't let go of her hand when they got to their feet. Joey didn't let of her hand when they started skating again. Joey didn't let go of her hand until Donna let go of her's when they needed to leave the rink. Donna felt cold in a way that had nothing to do with the ice. 

Okay, maybe it did have something to do with the ice. But Donna suspected Joey and her pretty hair and chapstick lips and clear-polish nails had just as much to do with it as the ice. 

Heart in her throat, Donna let her arms swing as they walked through slush back to Joey's car. Their hands brushed together, stiff and numb from the cold. Donna really should have gotten her fingerless gloves back out, but they were more for fashion than function, and the function right now was to hold Joey's hand again.

Joey, thank  _ God _ , was proving, again and again, to be braver than Donna. 

"Your hands are cold," she said and squeezed Donna's hand with equally cold fingers.

"Your's too, I wonder how that happened?" 

Joey laughed and Donna felt a warm light turn on in her chest. 

They were only a handful of spaces away from Joey's car, Donna reasoned, it was now or never, not like she could ask Joey to hold her hand while she drove.

Donna clasped their joined hands with her other, holding Joey's hand between both of hers. She pressed her lips to Joey's fingers and blew warm air into their joined hands, only vaguely pretending the action was to warm them up. 

Joey spoke with her hands as well as her lips, and under the lamps of the parking lot, ankle-deep in snow, Donna could reason it a kiss. 


End file.
